


Eternal Tango

by counterheist



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gundam, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Dogs, Humor I Swear, M/M, Minor Character Death, Nikolai Plisetsky Character Assassination Sorry Grandpa, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stalking, Thirsty Victor Nikiforov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 15:34:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11947260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counterheist/pseuds/counterheist
Summary: Of course, Yuri hasn’t been crowned King of anything yet. There are still holdouts, Viktor has been given to understand. Civilians partial to democracy. Ex-Alliance military veterans who fought for the ESUN and won’t see it die so quickly. And there’s still Yuuri, precious Yuuri, somewhere out there in space in his loose tank tops and his painted-on shorts. When he arrives to sweep Viktor into his Gundam, but more importantly into his arms, Viktor will demand he explain why he’s so late and also why they aren’t married yet.Viktor’s held up his end of their tacit agreement.Viktor’s kept ittight.(A Gundam Wing Endless Waltz AU)





	Eternal Tango

**Author's Note:**

> many thanks to spooky for listening to me complain ad nauseam about how this kept going, and to tom for the quick read through.
> 
> for dadvans, [who asked for 5K of Gundam Wing AU](https://kixboxer.tumblr.com/post/164776133167/i-was-painfully-ride-or-die-1x2-but-victor-as). (there is high quality mspaint cover art at that link btw)

The door glides open and clicks shut. Soft footsteps approach across the plush carpet, but Viktor continues to contemplate a vase of roses sitting across the room on top of a lacquered cabinet. It’s fine porcelain, a rice grain pattern with a blue underglaze. Harsh yellow roses sit stiffly inside it. A nod to Viktor’s politics, maybe, though a misguided gesture. _Peace_ roses involve _pink_. All good things do.

“Tea?” an aide asks.

Viktor turns his head. One of the guards has left. His host remains absent. “Yes, please. With lemon.”

“Of course, Vice Foreign Minister.”

The aide busies himself with a tea service on a polished wooden table next to the door. The blue-white porcelain cups and saucers of the service match the vase of yellow roses. The remaining guard avoids Viktor’s eyes.

“I normally take my tea with jam,” Viktor says to break the silence, “but I've been watching my sugar intake. I want to be looking my best when Yuuri comes back for me. So, lemon.”

The guard coughs.

The aide picks up a silver strainer with one hand and pours boiling tea through it and into a blue-white cup with the other. Viktor doesn’t recognize him from the shuttle greeting party at the landing bay. “Yes, Vice Foreign Minister,” the aide agrees.

“He’s going to.”

“Naturally, Vice Foreign Minister.”

“He promised the last time I saw him.”

The aide sets the teapot down and picks up a paper-thin curl of lemon with a pair of delicate silver tongs. Everything about this visit has reminded Viktor of the Earth. Of the old halls in Europe, of the elaborate gardens at Saint Gabriel’s where he went to school while his mother was still alive. Of the sitting room he waited in before they made him King. The art is the same, the furniture, the imported tea, the epaulets on the guards’ uniforms. None of this is like any other colony visit Viktor has had before.

It’s very curious.

Possibly dangerous.

Viktor shifts slightly in his seat.

The aide rests the lemon curl on the edge of the cup. “I'm sure he did, Vice Foreign Minister.”

“I have to keep things tight,” Viktor says with all the sunshine he learned on his mother’s campaign trail. He pats his stomach lightly and smiles serenely when he feels the defined abdominal muscles through the rosebud cotton and crème silk brocade. Odd surroundings ringing warning bells or no, he has an obligation to himself and to his future husband Yuuri Katsuki to be able to fit into the wedding suit he’s already ordered.

The aide doesn’t reply. The guard wheezes.

“Oh,” Viktor continues, “and if you're going to try and kill me, I do advise against it. The longer you draw this out the more tense Yuuri will be when he gets here. My last assailant is still in a medical coma.”

The aide stills, sweetener packet in hand. “No one is trying to kill you, Vice Foreign Minister,” he says in the soothing, placating tone of government aides everywhere. He pours the packet into Viktor’s drink and stirs.

He places the cup on its saucer in front of Viktor.

He waits for Viktor to drink.

It’s like he doesn't believe Viktor has been through this before.

“I abhor violence,” Viktor states mildly. He wonders if Yuuri’s surveillance equipment is in the vase of flowers this time, or if the bugs are already on his clothes. He hopes it's his clothes. He closes his eyes and imagines Yuuri in his closet in the dead of night, carefully running his hands across silk and linen and twill. Unlacing Viktor’s shoes. Palming his ties.

The door bursts open before Viktor can get to the really good parts.

“You _disgust_ me.”

Viktor opens his eyes to inspect the newcomer. He is a boy, sixteen at most, wearing a beret and a capelet. As the boy sits down in a chair on the opposite side of the table, Viktor can see the otherwise austere black capelet is actually lined in leopard print. Not quite what Viktor would call style, but the child is young. He has time to learn the merits of a classic, clean pink.

“Good afternoon,” Viktor greets. “When will Mr. Tuchkov be joining us? I’m looking forward to beginning our discussions on the warehouse expansion project here on L5 X2907.”

The boy stares at Viktor. Hard. “I can’t see it.”

“Hm?”

“Why they would make _you_ King of the Earth,” the boy says. “ _You_. You’re nothing but an old idiot in pink who likes to make speeches and who’s too much of a coward to fight.”

“I’m hardly old,” Viktor sets a hand on the table next to the likely-poisoned tea. “I’m barely twenty, and virile, and _flexible_.”

The boy groans in teenage fury. “Why would you even _say_ that?”

“I’m clearly being kidnapped right now. The last four times Yuuri had the room bugged and was listening, and I just wanted to remind him I can put my legs behind my head in case he’d forgotten. He’s taking quite a long time coming back for me,” Viktor frowns, slightly. “I hope it’s not because he thinks I haven’t been keeping myself ready for him.”

“That’s it,” the boy pulls out a silver pistol from beneath his black-and-leopard capelet. His face is a furious, embarrassed red. Maybe this is his first time holding someone at gunpoint. Viktor remembers _his_ first time. “The tea was a stupid idea anyway, I _told_ them. Just shut up and come with me or I’ll shoot you in the face.”

Viktor chooses a graceful, diplomatic silence, and hopes Yuuri hurries it up with the rescuing.

* * *

Several hours away in the L1 cluster, boy genius, adult disaster Yuuri Katsuki opens his eyes. He breathes silently through his nose - in, out, in - and assesses his physical condition. No broken bones that he can tell, all joints correctly connected. Glasses on. A graze on his left shoulder. But. Oh. But his hands are covered in blood. He looks down. No, no. Not blood. Nothing. His hands are covered in nothing. Maybe sweat. Sweat. Nothing else. Dried semen from before he fell asleep. Nothing else.

Not blood.

It was just the dream again, the dream with the dog. The dream that's been haunting him since his first mission. The dream he’s been having more and more since the war ended and he stopped fighting. He’s sixteen again in it, setting charges in an Alliance mobile suit factory on L1 X1899. He hits the trigger, and flames rise like flowers and flame retardant falls like snow. A dog is caught in the blast, dies whimpering in Yuuri’s arms. Yuuri has to steal a jacket to cover the blood.

How many times will he have to kill that dog in his sleep?

Probably a lot. He’s been repressing a lot of things for a lot of years. When he starts dreaming about the bases that come after L1 X1899 he'll really be in trouble.

Something flickers in the corner of his vision. He sits up.

The decommissioned flight deck control room he’s been squatting in for the last three weeks is dark save for the bank of monitors on the far wall. Yuuri turns his head to look at them and sees one of the screens is active, white output window reporting riots in the L3 cluster. L3… Cao Bin can deal with it. The rest of the monitors remain timed out. Their screensaver image is a surveillance picture of Earth Sphere United Nations Vice Foreign Minister Viktor Nikiforov’s bedroom.

It’s a nice picture. Viktor has a nice bedroom. Yuuri likes the wallpaper.

A second monitor fizzles to life.

Yuuri’s desktop background is also a picture of ESUN Vice Foreign Minister Viktor Nikiforov’s bedroom. This time taken at night, Viktor safely asleep in his bed holding Makkachin close in his arms. The stuffed poodle Yuuri gave him sits on his nightstand on top of a copy of The Rustic Wedding Handbook. Does Viktor want a rustic wedding? He can’t want a rustic wedding. He cried when he first got back to the Sanq Kingdom and the palace didn’t have a juicer in the kitchens.

The Sanq Kingdom palace kitchens don't exist anymore because Yuuri accidentally destroyed them with Epyon while fighting the Lightning Count.

A third monitor follows.

Yuuri dutifully represses a few more things. _That Alliance hospital. His bike shorts._ Phichit told him Guang Hong’s been going to therapy. It’s probably enough that one of the five of them is. Yuuri’s covered. Therapy is transitive? Yuuri has only killed half as many people as Guang Hong. Seventy percent, tops. Yuuri doesn’t need therapy. Repression is healthy. Dreams can't hurt him.

A call starts to ring on the second monitor. Unfamiliar schematics pop up on the third.

He rises quickly. By the time he’s crossed the room he’s fully awake and alert and casually paranoid. Even with the war over and Libra destroyed and the colonies safe, there are some things Yuuri will never be able to rid himself of. And who's to say he wants to? Paranoia keeps you alive. Being alive is a good thing, probably. Better than ending up like that dog Yuuri killed.

Doctor C’s face appears on the second screen. It’s a shame, because Yuuri would much rather look at his desktop background. He silently considers the merits of overriding the video function on his messaging application. He doesn’t because it would be a rude thing to do mid-call, and doing rude things makes Yuuri feel guilty, and Yuuri has been trying to avoid making himself feel guilty since retiring from vigilantism.

Doctor C looks very tired. His hair is at half its regular volume and only thirty percent of its regular luster. “Viktor’s been kidnapped. Again.”

“Why. What. I don't. Why does that have anything to do with me?” Yuuri asks, strapping a gun to his thigh. It will take five hours, four at the absolute minimum if he steals his own craft, to get to Viktor’s last known location in the L5 cluster. ...Who is Yuuri kidding, of course he’s going to steal a shuttle. This is what happens when Yuuri scales back his monitoring program and leaves critical operations up to Viktor’s assigned Preventer security detail. Yuuri wasn’t overreaching and crossing boundaries. Yuuri was _right_. Guang Hong’s therapist is a hack and a liar.

Shoving several extra ammunition clips into his belt, Yuuri cuts off the call right as Doctor C says something about _an army_ and _the Plisetsky Foundation_ and _your fellow pilots_. If Doctor C sends a mission briefing Yuuri will read it on the flight.

Yuuri has a shuttle to steal.

* * *

The flight back to Earth goes about as well as Viktor expects.

The boy’s name is Yuri Plisetsky, of Plisetsky Foundation fame. His father was Jean Jacques Leroy, of OZ generalship, who was the first person Viktor ever shot at, and who also used to bathe in rose petals. Viktor was the first person Yuri Plisetsky pointed a gun at. Viktor now bathes in rose petals.

No matter how far the world turns it always ends up coming back to the same spot.

What a poetic thought.

“Stop smiling,” little Plisetsky grouses.

In response, Viktor smiles wider. “It’s good for you,” he says. “Just like peace. And love! Do you have anyone who loves you, Yura?”

“Don't _call_ me that. I _hate_ you.”

“Not hate, second Yuri to hold me at gunpoint. _Love_.”

Viktor is handcuffed to his chair, the fact of which is a little tasteless and very unnecessary. It’s a comfortable chair. They’re surrounded by the void of space. Where, exactly, does Yuri Plisetsky think Viktor is going to _go_?

“My grandfather,” Yuri says.

Besides, Viktor taught himself how to get out of handcuffs years ago. What if his Yuuri has to attend to a mission when Viktor is locked up for sexual purposes? What if Viktor’s favorite television show comes on while Yuuri’s away and the channel has been changed and the remote has been carelessly left on the credenza? Well, now Viktor can dislocate his wrist and wriggle his way to the season finale of Project Space Runway without having to trigger his panic button. Everyone wins.

“My _grandfather_ ,” Yuri repeats.

“What was that?”

Yuri puffs up. Ah, there’s the pink. “My grandfather loves me!” Yuri shouts. The passel of guards surrounding them cringe as one. “He formed an _army_ for me, and my army is going to take over the world, and it will crush your pathetic attempts to resist it!”

In a normal situation Viktor would take a moment like this to place a finger against his lips and frown contemplatively. But, handcuffs. “Well, yes.”

“Wh-what?” Yuri splutters.

“I couldn’t stop your army personally, no. I’m a pacifist. Oh, I could certainly try to appeal to them, to their minds and hearts, but I would never raise a weapon against them.” Viktor shrugs elegantly and looks up out of the corner of his eyes. Some of the guards are sweating heavily. If they’re former Alliance, then Viktor is their former King. If the war hasn’t ended for them, maybe in their minds he’s _still_ their King. That's something Viktor can use. “And if your army is so dedicated to fighting, it’s unlikely my words will sway them.”

Outside the small shuttle windows the Earth grows larger and larger. It’s beautiful. Viktor has always loved seeing the Earth from space. It’s invariably his favorite part of his trips to the colonies. From space, the Earth is as perfect as any ideal.

“Well…,” Yuri Plisetsky leans back against a seat that dwarfs him. He’s a boy, _fifteen_ actually, wearing a leopard print miniature cape and a beret that makes his ears stick out. He’s no Dermail Giacometti. He’s no Jean Jacques Leroy. He’s a boy, and Viktor feels sorry for him. “…Good.”

Not sorry enough not to say, “my Yuuri, on the other hand, has no such restrictions on his beliefs.”

* * *

When Yuuri gets to the ESUN consulate on L5 X2901, he learns Viktor flew to the partially-completed industrial colony L5 X2907 that morning and has not been heard from since. And, okay, that makes Yuuri furious. Sad. Worried. Guilty.

After he breaks into Viktor’s bedroom at the consulate, he flops down onto the large mattress – king sized, they only ever give Viktor kings – and stares blankly at the ceiling as he evaluates his options. He could steal one of the freight-loading mobile suits and systematically search the cluster. He could hack into L5 X2907’s mainframe. He could pull a Guang Hong and start blowing up colonies until someone has the good sense to at least send out a ransom note Yuuri can work off of.

An air vent in the hallway outside Viktor’s bedroom rattles noisily. Yuuri sighs. He wishes he had searched the building for Makkachin so he could hide his face in Makkachin’s fur during this conversation. Yuuri loves Makkachin. Makkachin is precious and good and alive. But Makkachin is probably with Yakov, and Yakov never liked Yuuri. Something about Yuuri being a terrorist. Whatever.

The door opens after a bit of scratching at the lock.

“Ciao-ciao called me before he called you because he knew you would rush off as soon as he told you,” Phichit Chulanont says, waltzing into the room and flopping himself down next to Yuuri. He is, for some reason, dressed like a priest. “This gave me a head start.”

“For a Gundam pilot you’re really bad at stealth,” Yuuri grumbles. “I could hear you thumping around in the air ducts as soon as you lifted yourself into them on the second floor.”

Phichit pokes him in the side. “Death is inevitable. As the God of Death, stealth is pointless. Besides,” he lifts his hands up above his head and twists side to side in a stretch, “Deathscythe was too cool to keep out of the public eye. It’s not my fault I got the best Gundam!”

“Vicchan had _wings_.”

“Deathscythe had a _scythe_. Made out of a _laser_. A _laserscythe_.”

“Wings!”

“Unnecessary wings! It could fly anyway.”

That pulls a laugh from Yuuri against his angst-ridden will. Phichit is always good for things like that. He might be Yuuri’s only friend in the solar system, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s Yuuri’s _best_ friend in the solar system. “I miss Vicchan,” Yuuri says once his laughter has subsided. If he had Vicchan he could have already found Viktor.

“And I miss Deathscythe,” Phichit nods. “We should have waited longer before disposing of them. Leo’s always hinting the Preventers keep having to put out bigger and bigger fires. It was only a matter of time until the militants grouped themselves up into an army and tried to take over the world again. The Earth sure is full of loonies.”

“Weaponry is not the path to true peace,” Yuuri recites.

“My friend, my buddy, Yuuri,” Phichit sits up. “I’ve never heard those words said in that exact way before, but I know you, which means I know they’re a Viktor Peacecraft quote.”

“…He’s going by Nikiforov. I know you know that.”

Phichit pokes Yuuri in his side again. “According to Ciao-ciao there’s a secretive military organization that wants to manipulate the colonies and destroy the Earth, and they’re using your big gay crush like a pawn. Sound familiar?”

Yuuri takes off his glasses and hits himself in the face with one of Viktor’s pillows. It smells like a combination of Viktor’s travel shampoo and damp dog. “He’s… just a target,” Yuuri says into the pillow. The fabric brushes against his lips as he speaks. It’s like the top of Viktor’s head and also one of Makkachin’s paws is giving him a kiss.

“Come on, lover boy.” The mattress rises when Phichit stands. “I know where we need to head next.”

“L5 X2907?”

“Exactly.”

* * *

A thousand space miles from Lagrange Point L2, a small shuttle drifts between the dust and debris that collect naturally at the gravitational dead zone between the Earth and the Moon. Inside the shuttle, a man and a woman sit at separate control stations. They are wearing the same dull tan uniform jackets.

The man is crying.

“I am Lightning,” he sobs, “the only heir of my birthright. And she told me I am _dead_ to her.”

“There there, Georgi,” the woman pats him on the back. “What did you think would happen when you started off dating Anya by calling yourself some silly made-up name? Zechs Merquise? Everyone in OZ could tell that was fake. And then the mask, and the way you chased after Viktor Nikiforov-”

Georgi punches another data parameter into the encryption program he wrote earlier, before he was dumped. “My family has protected the Peacecraft line for centuries, Mila, I only _followed_ Prince Viktor because _he_ kept chasing after that _Gundam_ pilot and I was _not about_ to have a _terrorist_ lay hands on my future _King_.”

Mila laughs. “Have you ever talked to Viktor when one or the other of you wasn’t flying into space, or overthrowing the government, or about to battle? Viktor would be thrilled to have Yuuri Katsuki lay hands on him. That boy has a vivid imagination and little restraint. You know, when we were waiting for you at the base in Antarctica he started to tell me—.”

Pushing his fingers into his ears, Georgi chants “Prince Viktor is pure, Prince Viktor is pure,” until Mila shakes his arm.

“There’s a message from Preventer Gold,” she says. All traces of her earlier mirth are gone. “The Tiger has begun to roar sooner than expected. We’re needed on Earth to join with the shooting stars and put out the flames. ”

“What?”

She swivels her seat around and begins plotting a course that will keep them hidden from the Mobile Doll factory they spent the last six weeks in space observing. “Plisetsky,” she repeats for Georgi’s benefit, if a little grudgingly. The code names would all be so much more impactful if Georgi would stop forgetting what they stand for. “Plisetsky’s armies are moving. They’ve already started a riot in a colony in the L3 cluster. According to Preventer Gold, they just took the Presidential Estate in Brussels. The Gundam pilots have already gotten involved.”

Georgi frowns and saves the last of the surveillance data. They’ll come back to sweep the base with the Tallgeese later.

“And Georgi?”

“Yes?”

“Plisetsky has Viktor.”

* * *

“I'm sorry, _who_ decided flinging our Gundams into the sun was the best idea?”

Yuuri mumbles something about escalation and diplomacy and trust. It's a condensed, much less charismatic version of a speech Viktor Nikiforov recently gave on a colony in the L2 cluster.

Cao Bin rolls his eyes so hard they nearly fall out. “Seung Gil didn’t even do it, so now he’s prancing around down there on Earth, in his Gundam, helping those fools send everything into chaos so they can return to a time we all fought to escape.” He smashes a fist against the console he’s leaning against. It’s the most agitated the others have ever seen him. “I _retired_.”

Guang Hong crosses and uncrosses and re-crosses his arms again. “We all tried to move on,” he placates, looking up from underneath his bangs with his wide brown eyes. It’s easy to forget that one time he snapped and destroyed an entire colony full of people and dogs and circuses. “I think Mister Viktor’s vision of peace is admirable. Just,” he pauses, searches for the right words, glances quickly down at Yuuri, who is half inside the maintenance hatch underneath the console, “perhaps we didn’t have the best timing.”

“We fucked up!” Phichit chirps. He hops up on the console next to Cao and kicks his legs back and forth. Yuuri grunts when Phichit possibly accidentally kicks him in the shin. “But we can un-fuck it. We just need to intercept that ship and get our Gundams back.”

“And then save the world again.” Cao pushes himself off the console. He drifts gracefully across the room in the colony’s lowered gravity before landing near the only exit.

A muffled “mission accepted” rises out from inside the console. Also “fuck these fucking wires” and “I think I broke it.”

Cao jams his spacesuit helmet onto his head. “And imagine, I used to think he was perfect.”

Guang Hong opens his mouth – “…I deleted the respiration system?” – and closes it again. Locks his own helmet in place on his head and activates his oxygen scrubber. “I’ll either meet you all in 17 hours at the interception point with our Gundams, or I’ll be pulled into the sun’s gravity field and perish. In the meantime, please don’t die.”

“You too, Guang Hong!” Phichit waves, slipping his helmet on and kicking Yuuri’s shin again. He picks up Yuuri’s helmet and waggles it in front of the maintenance hatch.

When Yuuri grabs it, he says “nobody’s dying” with the kind of grave certainty he used to have when he was hooked into the ZERO system. Guang Hong nods and floats away. Cao disappears down a dark hallway.

“Well,” Phichit says once they’re gone. “Let’s see about preventing Operation Meteor a second time.”

* * *

When the shuttle docks, Viktor is led by armored car and Yuri Plisetsky’s silver pistol to the ESUN Presidential Estate. Viktor pauses at the grand entrance, finding himself oddly impressed with how quickly Plisetsky toppled the government Viktor worked so hard to re-establish. It has been, according to Viktor’s watch, just over 16 hours. Truly an impressive feat. If only it had been done without soldiers.

Of course, Yuri hasn’t been crowned King of anything yet. There are still holdouts, Viktor has been given to understand. Civilians partial to democracy. Ex-Alliance military veterans who fought for the ESUN and won’t see it die so quickly. And there’s still Yuuri, precious Yuuri, somewhere out there in space in his loose tank tops and his painted-on shorts. When he arrives to sweep Viktor into his Gundam, but more importantly into his arms, Viktor will demand he explain why he’s so late and also why they aren’t married yet.

Viktor’s held up his end of their tacit agreement.

Viktor’s kept it _tight_.

…Viktor feels the pistol jab into his lower back.

“Hurry it up,” Yuri growls. “Grandfather is waiting for us.”

“That’s not a very polite way to welcome me into your base,” Viktor chides. “Other kidnappers have been much nicer to me.”

“Suck my dick,” Yuri offers.

Kids these days.

* * *

The sun is, very predictably, much warmer up close. Guang Hong wipes the back of his hand against his forehead. This achieves very little: spacesuits aren’t designed to absorb moisture. Maybe if Guang Hong survives this newest battle he can focus his R&D department on a novel nanomaterial that keeps pilots dry even when they’re racing against the clock to stop a thousand tons of gundanium weaponry from hurtling into the sun.

He wipes the back of his other hand against his forehead.

It continues to not help.

But the reflex, at least, calms him.

When his cruiser docks against the freighter he’d purchased as coffin and hearse for Sandrock and the others he sighs in relief.

“There you are, old friend.”

He sets the autopilot on Cao’s Heavyarms first. Then Phichit’s Deathscythe. He saves Wing Zero for last. It’s been several years, yes, but.

When Guang Hong Ji closes his eyes he can still see the trajectory suggestions and hear the screaming. A part of him feels unfinished. That part wants to climb into Wing Zero and bring about peace by _force_. Ultimately it’s not much different from what Yuuri will do, right? Yuuri will get into that cockpit and engage ZERO and complete his mission objectives. He’ll use Wing Zero’s double beam cannon to achieve them.

Guang Hong has engaged that double beam cannon. He’s proved he can operate the ZERO system too. Plus or minus a few thousand casualties.

Guang Hong does not climb into Wing Zero’s cockpit.

He sets the autopilot to the rendezvous coordinates Yuuri will be waiting at from outside, body balanced on the catwalk. He’s strong enough to know that he’s not strong enough.

He still notices the pictures Yuuri has taped up inside next to the auxiliary flight stabilizers. His eyes focus on a pixelated Viktor Nikiforov, naked from the waist up, brushing his hair on the other side of an open window. He flings himself back into Sandrock’s welcoming embrace as quickly as is safe to do so.

* * *

The storehouse on L5 X2309 still has enough spare ion packs in it to keep a beam saber going for over a solid hour of use and then some. Phichit rolls his eyes at Yuuri when they empty the entire place into their respective shuttles, but really, Yuuri had no say in what was kept on L5. He destroyed pretty much almost nearly everything he’d been squirreling away on L1, right after leaving Viktor a stuffed poodle and going to a maintenance bathroom to freak out a bit over it. Yuuri went from watching Viktor safely attend a meeting about peace to detonating over 1.8 million tons of C4-equivalent in the safety of space. Yuuri was good.

L5 is Seung Gil’s colony cluster. Seung Gil is the one who chose not to let go.

Of course, a part of Yuuri agrees heartily with Seung Gil’s choice. That part of Yuuri has also not let anything go. It is trapped in a cycle of past mistakes and future negative possibilities, and it really needs to interact with more people without figuring out the best three ways to disable them before learning their names. That part of Yuuri could benefit from a service dog, maybe. Something small and brown and alive, to offset the dog he killed.

Sometimes Yuuri sneaks a few treats for Makkachin into Viktor’s mansion, just to see what it’s like to do good things for a dog. Yuuri likes Makkachin. Makkachin helps protect Viktor, and Makkachin is alive.

Phichit leaves for his rendezvous point once there aren’t any more ion packs to load into his shuttle. “Go get him,” he says, clapping Yuuri on the back. “And remember, as your Best Man I get to give a speech for at least ten minutes. Tell Viktor I’m rooting for him!”

Yuuri wheezes. Phichit is stronger than he looks. (Yuuri is emotionally weaker than he looks.)

He stutters out something about _just a target_ or _critical mission objectives_ , but Phichit closes his shuttle doors before Yuuri can really defend himself.

And then Yuuri is alone again.

He takes to space to wait, fires up his scanning program, tunes all his algorithms to Plisetsky and Viktor and what the media has begun calling the Second Eve War. That’s right: it will be Viktor’s birthday in a few hours.

Yuuri was going to give him flowers this year, but that will have to wait. Not being kidnapped anymore is a much better gift than flowers. …Should Yuuri also give flowers? Will Viktor be expecting them? Red roses? Peace roses? Tulips? But before Yuuri can hack into a bulk flower supplier’s website and send a thousand carnations to Viktor’s apartment in Belgium and twenty-one long-stemmed red roses to his mansion in France, all his screens cut to a boy’s face.

The boy is wearing a beret and a capelet.

* * *

Preventer Gold does not take security threats lightly. She grabs them forcefully by the throat and crushes the very life from them as they attempt their futile resistance against her iron grip. When Preventer Gold sees the broadcast little Leroy’s son airs to the world, she feels a trickle of shame that is quickly overcome by a rush of revulsion. The disgust does not stop, not even when Viktor Nikiforov elbows himself into the camera’s view and, of all things, tells the world to keep fighting back.

Military solutions are her specialty, and in general she believes they are more effective than diplomacy when it all comes down to it. But it’s not the sort of argument she expects from a blood Peacecraft. What is this world coming to?

And then there is Leroy’s son.

On her way out of Preventer headquarters she tells her assistant to hold her calls.

Jean Jacques Leroy had shown promise so many years ago at the Lake Victoria Base training facility. From his beginnings as a loudmouthed, graceless cadet he had risen to the top of her classes. She had expected greatness from him. She had funneled him towards officer promotions and tracked his ascent personally.

Jean Jacques Leroy had, ultimately, been a disappointment. Corpse cold, he continues to disappoint her.

As she drives towards the Presidential residence where Plisetsky’s ridiculous broadcast originated from, Preventer Gold disappears. With deadly focus, Lady Lilia Baranovskaya resolves to correct the last of her late student’s mistakes.

* * *

Nikolai Plisetsky demands Nikiforov stay in the bunker’s main control room so he can see the revolution come to fruition and the Gundams destroyed. That is, of course, until the bickering between Yuri and Nikiforov becomes so overwhelming Nikolai can no longer make convincing broadcasts about the power of the Plisetsky Army, or peace through strength.

“You and _pink_ ,” Yuri sneers. He’s still upset about the stunt Nikiforov pulled earlier. To be fair, so is Nikolai. He’d cut the broadcast and backhanded Nikiforov out of the way for his insolence, but it still rankles. Brussels has fallen, even without Operation Meteor. Nikolai is so close to vengeance he can taste it in the air.

“It gives a healthy glow to my features,” Nikiforov sniffs.

“It washes you out, fuckface. You're too old for pastels!”

Nikiforov gasps.

“Out,” Nikolai shouts as his patience finally shatters. “Out, the both of you!”

Nikiforov turns away from Yuri to look at him, expression cool and even despite the bruise blooming across his jaw. “I already am,” he says sweetly.

“You…”

“My Yuuri, I’m not so sure,” Nikiforov continues, backing away. The guards should be restraining him, forcing him into a side room to wait. They don’t. “But that doesn’t stop me from loving him. Just like your army won’t stop him from destroying you.”

Yuri has been watching all of this from the short stage at the front of the room. Nikolai hopes he hasn’t been picking up any poor habits from Nikiforov. Not for the first time he regrets kidnapping the fop. Yuri already borders on unmanageable at the best of times, even without regular exposure to fools. Not an ideal quality in a puppet leader, but Nikolai ran out of options after his daughter died.

“Why are you...,” Yuri asks, suspicious. “You’re Viktor Peacecraft. You’re not supposed to talk like that.” He takes a step forward. Frowns. “You’re _weak_.”

Viktor Nikiforov draws himself up to his full height and beams out the smile that convinced Dermail Giacometti to make him the King of the World. “I may have been born a Peacecraft, smaller Yuri than my Yuuri, but I was raised a Nikiforov. I’m just now realizing what that means.” He pauses, but no one interrupts him to ask _what_ or _how_ or _why are you so fixated on that Gundam pilot_. “Nikiforovs are winners.”

He looks over his shoulder, dead on at a camera Nikolai is only just realizing is displaying a blinking red light. _Shit. When did that happen?_

“Shoot this bunker down, Yuuri,” Nikiforov says to the camera broadcasting to all of Earth and space, lips curling up. “And come for me.”

* * *

The beam gatling on Heavyarms clicks madly through a chamber empty of rounds. Cao opens up a direct comm connection to Seung Gil while he disconnects the arm and unsheathes his beam saber. “Can you believe they’re still subjecting the rest of us to their flirting?” Cao asks. He slams the beam saber down on the arm of a Serpent mobile suit, disabling it without killing the pilot.

Seung Gil responds by shooting Altron’s dragon fangs at Heavyarms’ head. Cao knows him well enough by now to take that as agreement.

“War is transitory, Seung Gil,” he says, swerving back before forcing his thrusters hard to the left to dodge an attack from Altron’s flamethrower. They’ve been at this for almost an hour, ever since Cao and Heavyarms broke through into the atmosphere over Europe. The only pauses in their match against each other have been to destroy the occasional Serpent that strayed too close. They’re still too evenly matched. “You fight wars so you don’t have to be in them anymore. For the life you envision on the other side.”

“He’s right,” Guang Hong’s voice cuts in. He’s been focusing on disabling Serpents and minimizing loss of life, which, that’s very noble of him, except he hasn’t been dodging dragon fangs to the head the entire time while doing it. “Seung Gil, please. We shouldn’t be fighting each other. We shouldn’t be fighting at all.”

Cao hears breathing over the comm, and for a moment he thinks it’s playback from his own mic. He’s tired, he’s really tired. It’s been a long day. Days? But then Seung Gil’s voice cuts through over the clash of battle. “Then what should we be doing,” he asks. “If we don’t fight. What should we do?”

A blaze of light erupts out of the sky to the east, a strong green-white beam that causes Cao to wince when his monitors go to full brightness. Guang Hong must still have his cockpit settings tuned for his trip back from the sun, though, because he sees what Cao and Seung Gil can’t. “Yuuri…” he breathes over their shared comm connection.

“Katsuki’s spoken for,” Seung Gil states.

“That’s not what I—,” Sandrock takes out the last two Serpents bent on fighting before the rest of the mobile suits on the field begin to power down, pilots stepping out of their cockpits, surrendering to the townspeople. “That shot was Yuuri; that was Wing Zero. He must have done what Viktor asked, and attacked Yuri Plisetsky’s base. It must,” Sandrock begins to run in the direction of the Presidential Estate, “it must be over.”

“It can’t be over.” But Altron has stopped attacking Cao or anybody else. Plisetsky’s soldiers have surrendered.

Cao puts his beam saber away.

Seung Gil follows.

“It can’t be over,” he says again, quieter this time.

Cao is suddenly reminded he’s the oldest of all of them, and he’s only twenty-three. “It’s over,” he repeats, “but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing left for us. You heard Nikiforov too. There’s work to be done. Peace isn’t something that will happen on its own.”

He begins to walk Heavyarms in the direction Sandrock went. Eventually Altron follows behind him.

* * *

The main lights go out as soon as the shot from Wing Zero’s double beam cannon makes contact with the surface gate over Plisetsky’s bunker. Viktor stumbles when the room around them heaves and shakes, but he manages to catch himself on the edge of a desk. Soft reddish emergency lights flare up after a few seconds. They illuminate piles of rubble and major structural damage to the room, loose wiring and exposed steel. Viktor doesn’t want to imagine what state the rest of the bunker is in. He only hopes Yuuri will have him out of there before it comes crashing down on their heads.

“What… what the fuck,” a trembling voice demands from the other side of the room. Plisetsky the younger. He’s half caught underneath a fallen bank of monitors, but appears otherwise unharmed. “Grandfather, what…?”

“Stop sniveling, boy,” Nikolai sneers. “And get up.”

Yuri Plisetsky shoves the metal and plastic and glass off his narrow shoulders, and stands. A thin line of dark red blood weeps out of a cut on his forehead, but his breathing is steady. His eyes are still hard. And again he reminds Viktor of himself, some. Viktor’s own breathing remains steady when Nikolai pulls out a gun from under his cape and levels it at his chest. Viktor has gotten used to the strangest things.

It's almost calming to him now, being held at gunpoint.

It means Yuuri will be here soon.

“I have no more use for you,” Nikolai says.

Yuuri will be here soon.

“In this world the weak follow the strong,” Nikolai says.

Surely Yuuri will be here soon.

“Your drivel about _perfect peace…_ just look where it’s gotten you,” Nikolai says.

_Yuuri…_

“When the dawn rises, it will usher in a new age,” Nikolai says, “one where I am the—”

“Viktor!”

He pulls the trigger.

* * *

Viktor breathes silently through his nose.

In.

Out.

In.

* * *

When Viktor hears Yuuri’s voice again, in person, for the first time in over two years, his hair is glossy from sweat and his body is coiled tight from shock. He’s cradling a blond bundle in his arms, a blond bundle that’s over half as tall as he is and keeps trying to evade his embrace.

“What the fuck,” Yuuri Katsuki asks, kicking a loose board out of his way and slipping into the room. “Viktor, are you? What? _Fuck._ ”

The soldiers don’t seem to quite know what to make of the situation either. One or two have their weapons pointed at Viktor and Yuri. Most are stuck staring between Nikolai and Viktor and Yuri, wondering who to follow. And then their heads turn to Yuuri, who is glorious and sweaty and unfortunately wearing jeans, but who is so fortunately and amazingly _present_ Viktor feels the tension inside himself begin to ebb. Yuuri is here. Yuuri came for him. Jean Jacques Leroy’s son is in his arms, punching his chest and cursing up a storm, bleeding from forehead and shoulder, but Yuuri is here. It’s going to be all right.

“I could replace you in an instant, Yura,” Nikolai snarls into the reddish dark. His gun is gone, lost in the struggle with his own grandson. His control on the situation is rapidly following. “Do you understand me? You are nothing more than a puppet to me. I _made_ you. I can _unmake_ you.”

Yuri doesn’t answer.

Yuuri doesn’t either, verbally. Instead he draws a matte black pistol from a holster at the small of his back and stares down at it. It’s a worn thing, familiar to his grip, serial number long filed away. Viktor’s stared down its barrel before. He’s had dreams about Yuuri and that gun.

He quietly lets the wounded Yuri slip out of his arms. Turning his back on Nikolai, he steps closer to the person he’s most wanted to see for a very long time.

“Yuuri?” he asks gently.

“I don’t want to kill again,” Yuuri whispers. “Viktor, I don’t…”

“Hush, my love,” Viktor whispers back. “You don’t ever have to kill anyone again. I promise.” He pries the pistol from Yuuri’s hand, has to peel back his clammy fingers to do so. And then he takes the gun himself, feels the heft and balance of it. Lifts it in his right hand, pivots a quarter turn, and points it confidently at Nikolai Plisetsky’s heart.

Viktor’s left arm slides around Yuuri’s shoulders and up. He places a soft hand on the back of Yuuri’s head, and buries Yuuri’s face in the crook of his neck. Rests his chin on Yuuri’s dusty, bowed head. Angles Yuuri’s body away.

So he won’t see.

“I can’t,” Yuuri mutters. His hands are shaking. “The mission.”

“You already completed your mission, my Yuuri,” Viktor says. He watches Nikolai Plisetsky regard him. He clicks the safety on Yuuri’s gun off with his pointer finger. This is not the first gun Viktor has pointed at another person. He thought the last had long passed him by. He was so sure he had already seen the last. “You can rest.”

Nearby, Yuri Plisetsky muffles a wet sob behind his crumpled beret. Viktor can’t say for sure why he would be crying. Objectively speaking, his grandfather treated him horribly. Called him a puppet to his face. A thing, not even a person. But then, if Viktor imagines their situations reversed, if Yakov had ever said those things to him and then stood in front of him like a defiant man inviting death, Viktor would cry too.

Or. Oh.

Viktor’s already crying. Yakov’s not even here, Makkachin either, but Viktor is holding a gun for the first time since those dark times after his mother died, and Viktor is crying. He tightens his grip on Yuuri’s familiar gun, and his hold on the nape of Yuuri’s neck. He feels the wetness spread across his cheeks only to soak into Yuuri’s dark hair.

This isn’t something he’s sure he can do.

But he will try. So Yuuri doesn’t have to.

Yuuri Katsuki is the most important person in Viktor’s heart, though he could never explain why.

Yuri Plisetsky is just a boy, and Viktor feels sorry for him, and he hopes someday he can forgive him.

A gunshot cracks through the broken control room. Nikolai Plisetsky falls face first onto the plush carpet. He doesn’t rise up out of the puddle of blood that begins to surround him.

Blinking in surprise, Viktor resets the safety on his – Yuuri’s – unfired gun and turns to look behind him.

“Mister Nikiforov,” Lady Lilia Baranovskaya lowers her firearm. “I trust I am not too late.”

* * *

The sun has already begun to rise by the time Yuuri opens his eyes. His left glasses lens has a new web of thin cracks, he notices. Until he replaces it he’ll suffer a 17% reduction in long range precision. His accuracy will be affected as well. But more importantly, he has a headache. He closes his eyes again and turns his face towards the warmth surrounding him. The warmth smells very nice. Like roses, underneath all the gun oil and crushed concrete.

“Yuuri.”

Even through the headache, he knows that voice. “Viktor,” he breathes.

“Oh here we go,” someone chuckles, and he knows that voice too.

“Phichit?”

When Yuuri opens his eyes again he forces them to stay that way.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Phichit smirks down at him. He’s wearing an aide worker’s bright orange vest over his flight suit this time, instead of the priest getup, with a matching orange cap pulled down low over his eyes. He hands Yuuri a crinkly silver blanket and tips his cap at Viktor. “Just wanted to check on you before rounding up the others. Remember, I get ten minutes for my speech! Minimum!”

He leaves before Yuuri can respond.

He’s always doing that.

Which is just as well, because before Yuuri can do anything at all his face is covered by Viktor’s face as Viktor administers the breath of life directly into Yuuri’s startled mouth. Viktor lingers there, hands against Yuuri’s sides. He forgets the compressions. Also, Yuuri is conscious and alert and already demonstrated the ability to speak, but he’s not about to stop kissing Viktor now.

Some minutes later, Viktor sits back. When he does, the pale blue sky comes into view above Yuuri’s head. It’s a beautiful thing, the sky. It’s his favorite thing about the Earth. That and the overwhelming number of dogs.

“Yuuri,” Viktor says softly, carding his fingers through Yuuri’s hair. “You saved me.”

“Yuri Plisetsky wrestled that gun out of his grandfather’s hands? I mean,” Yuuri coughs. Viktor waits, patient. “I saw that part. While I was trying to get into the room without kicking the door down. Plisetsky saved your life. I almost killed all of you when I shot the bunker.”

“You’ve saved me more times than I can count,” Viktor beams.

“Viktor.”

“Yuuri.”

“Prince Viktor!”

Yuuri sits up because he also knows _that_ voice, and hasn’t he had enough for today?

From a distance he sees the Lightning Count, Georgi Popovich, come barreling towards him still wearing a full spacesuit, helmet and all. Mila Babicheva jogs lightly after him, always a little more amused than Yuuri can really trust.

“You!” Georgi screams over his spacesuit’s external speakers. The noise comes out tinny and furious, and Yuuri still doesn’t have any broken bones, but he would rather dislocate and relocate his leg again if it meant he didn’t have to convince Georgi he isn’t trying to kill Viktor anymore. He hasn’t seriously tried to kill Viktor in a long time. And even then, it was only a little bit seriously, and he felt really bad about it. If he killed Viktor he would make an orphan out of Makkachin. Also, Viktor’s eyes are very blue. It’s an important thing. His eyes. Yuuri has always liked looking at them.

“Georgi,” Yuuri greets tonelessly.

“Popovich,” Viktor nods regally, which stops Georgi in his tracks. “If you would be so kind…?”

“I. My Prince?” Georgi stammers, dropping into a practiced bow. Yuuri has no idea how he manages it in the restrictive spacesuit.

“Do give Yakov a call to bring the car around,” Viktor says. “And have him make an appointment with a doctor who can be _discreet_. And Makkachin! Have him bring Makkachin too. Makkachin must be so lonely without me.”

“Your highness, yes, I,” Georgi lifts the helmet off his head. His hair is a mess. “How are you feeling? I apologize! I apologize for leaving your rescue in the hands of this—”

Viktor smiles at him. “I am feeling like I am missing Makkachin,” he says. A cold thrill runs up Yuuri’s spine.

Georgi blanches. “My Prince.” He bows again, this time half again as deep. He leaves the way he came, running in a spacesuit, impossible to miss with Mila jogging behind him laughing lightly.

Yuuri is left alone with Viktor again, but only for a little while, until a stately pink sedan crests the horizon. He watches as it navigates around rubble and deactivated mobile suits. When the road ends it swerves into the grassy field and weaves around the crowds of civilians and soldiers as though they were no different than traffic cones. Yuuri leans against Viktor’s side to watch the car’s progress, even though he doesn’t really need the support. He’s not physically hurt so much as he is so very, very tired.

“Yuuri?”

“Viktor?”

“How do you feel about children, my Yuuri?”

“What.”

Viktor smiles against the side of Yuuri’s head. It’s incredibly distracting. The pink sedan begins to climb its way up the small hill the Presidential Estate is perched upon. “Yuri Plisetsky very tragically died in that bunker—,” Yuuri’s breath hitches, that dog, he sees that dog again, his _hands_ , “but Lady Baranovskaya said she would kindly adopt Yura Leroy so he doesn’t become a, what was the phrase, a material disgrace like his father or an incompetent megalomaniac like his grandfather.”

Yuuri hums lightly.

“But I think Lady Baranovskaya wouldn’t mind a little extra help. She’s not the most,” Viktor filters through his vocabulary with kingly diplomacy, “nurturing.”

 _Neither am I_ , Yuuri wants to scream. _God._ Instead, he says, “I killed a dog.”

Viktor stills.

“I killed a dog on L1 before I met you. I didn’t mean to. But I did.”

The pink sedan slows its pace as it closes in on them. Unlike the rest, the front window isn’t tinted. Through it Yuuri can see a scowling Yakov glaring daggers straight into his heart. And next to him, on the front passenger seat, a wriggling slobbering overwhelmed Makkachin scrabbles against the glass, trying to reach closer.

Viktor grabs Yuuri’s right hand and lifts it to his lips. When Yuuri looks up at his face he sees wonder, and sorrow, and faith. “Yuuri,” Viktor says, “I forgive you.”

* * *

The five of them gather together this time to destroy their Gundams.

When Yuuri watches Vicchan dissolve in a burst of light, he finally feels something approaching peace.

**Author's Note:**

> HAH SO I WAS LIKE, I'LL WRITE LIKE 1K FOR THIS TUMBLR ASK FOR TUMBLR USER DADVANS IT'LL BE SUPER QUICK AND VERY LULZY
> 
> and that was not the case.
> 
> \- when I realized Nikiforov = WINNER my mind started running down the paths of Viktor = Quatre (pastels! pale! boisterous groups follow him around! soft! underlying strength! rich! has 30 sisters?!) and it was a struggle to shut that down for the sake of Viktor = Relena (THEY BOTH HAVE A PINK CAR AND ARE VERY THIRSTY).
> 
> \- I really really swear this was meant to be a bunch of jokes. And then I thought 'lol Heero what's wrong with you'. And then I remembered 'oh right I know what's wrong with Heero. Heero's life is what's wrong with Heero.' And then I kept the dead dog and it all got 1000x more heavy from there.
> 
> \- I did a partial GW rewatch last spring, but I haven't seen Endless Waltz in years. I AM SO READY TO SEE IT AGAIN IF ANYONE HAS A GOOD STREAM LET ME KNOW.


End file.
